temp
by Stealthytanub
Summary: temp


As barriers go, this one's not much to look at. Dull colors swirl around her, mottled as if viewed through uneven glass. It's impossible to get any sense of perspective: she could be in a room, a tunnel, or a cavern for all her eyes can tell her.

Not that she's worried. In this world there is only one person who can build a witch's labyrinth inside her dreams, and that person wouldn't harm a hair on her head.

Right on cue, a red ribbon rolls out of the distance, unspooling in a wavy line that rolls right up to Homura, shoots between her bare feet, and continues merrily on. She turns to watch it go, and notices her own casual dress in the process: a violet-trimmed tank top with no bra underneath and a pair of boy-shorts underwear. _Someone's_ in a pervy mood tonight.

It doesn't take a genius to know to start walking. _Follow the red ribbon road._

The colors around her soften as she pads forward. The surface under her toes is firm but not rocky, neither cold nor hot, like a sturdy floor with a soft mat over it. Movement to her left catches her eye: a butterfly-wing-shaped piece of the wall (either normal-sized and a stone's throw away, or mountain-sized and miles off) detaches just enough to wave slightly, revealing a sliver of even brighter hues underneath. Homura allows herself a secret smile and waves back.

Now that she's broken the ice, so to speak, other pieces of scenery begin to reveal themselves. Sequins and buttons sparkle modestly on the walls; a handful of pins sprout from the ground like so many flowers, bits of wire and thorn twirling around their bases. Is that a wisp of cloud above, or icing? A spray of rain in the distance, or a cascade of tumbling musical notes?

Something brushes the inside of Homura's ankles. She stumbles, nearly tripping over the offending object until she realizes that it's only the ribbon, pulled taut by some unseen source until it rises up off the ground.

With a sigh of relief she gets back in motion. The silky fabric vibrates approvingly against her calves.

Real flowers are starting to bloom now: roses, black against the warming swirls of color, dark-winged butterflies perched on their curled-up leaves. They redden in the glow of a crop of bright little birthday candles; rusted gears turning slowly on the walls begin to flash copper and gold at the flames. A low spotlight goes on, then another: parts of the unchanging ground ripple, and suddenly Homura can see that they're pools, shimmering under the new light.

The ribbon traces its way up her thighs, brushing new pale flesh with each step.

Homura's getting wobbly again, and not because she's startled.

When the fabric between her legs hums only centimeters from the soft swell of her panties, Homura has to grab the length of ribbon ahead of her to keep in balance. In spite of its humble appearance, it's as sturdy as the thick ropes they used to climb in eighth grade gym class, more than able to carry her full weight and then some.

"Madoka-sama is a cruel and unforgiving deity," says Homura out loud.

In one motion the ribbon makes its last jerk upward, rubbing fiercely against her.

Homura moans as she takes the next step. It's slower going now, hand over hand, the firm and constant massage between her legs making her insides throb hotly. Already damp, her cotton underpants are forced to slide against warm flesh, caressing her with her own fluids. Her mouth falls open, taking great gasps of air in an instinctive attempt to cool her body down.

The scenery isn't helping. Obscenely red roses open all around her, their petals dewy and flushed and trembling with vibrancy. A girl's school uniform lies caught on some outcrop, tilted submissively backward at some unseen advance, its skirt fluttering upward in a nonexistent breeze to offer teasing glimpses of the lack of anything beneath. A luscious, ripe strawberry tumbles down a mound of icing, leaving slick, sugary trails in its wake. Even the grinding of the gears, now smooth and shiny and pumping out soft gasps of steam with every turn, is...well, grinding Homura's gears.

Worse, her underwear is starting to ride up her thighs. The fabric is cut low on her hips to begin with, and the rubbing in the cleft of her pert (according to the more forward of her rebuked admirers) behind is tugging it inward. These days her hair is cut to halfway down her back; no protection will be found there.

Too late, Homura bends forward. Cool air flows teasingly across her bare bottom. Embarrassed, she squeezes her shoulders together in a reflex learned a lifetime ago, and the motion pushes her breasts together: the tank top's sewn closely enough that they won't fall out the top, but she's all the more conscious of the way they bounce and swing against the fabric. "F-fuck, Madoka, please..."

In the next three steps her clit slides back and forth over the ribbon and she's undone. She cries out, clinging to the support that holds her as surely as a balance beam while she quakes with the orgasm crashing over her.

When she has the breath to speak again, Homura's arms and legs are clamped around the ribbon, toes barely brushing the ground. Beads of sweat run down from the curves of her shoulders and trace the arch of her spine; her inner thighs are soaked, panties still clinging to them by sheer force of will.

Her hips are still unsteady. The incessant erotic pulse between them goes on.

With slow, tottering steps Homura begins to pull herself forward again. Curtains of silky black hair fall around her face, blocking out the sights and sounds of the labyrinth, forcing her to focus on the sensation of the ribbon fondling her breasts and the muscles of her stomach and her swollen clit all at once. "You...you're _i-insatiable_," she pants, overwhelmed and helpless and adoring in equal measure.

There's another tug on the ribbon. Not up, this time, but forward.

Homura closes her eyes and lets herself be reeled in.

She tumbles to her knees on a soft, yielding surface, light playing behind her eyelids.

A familiar tableau of brightness greets her vision when she gets up the nerve to look. She's not floating this time, but kneeling on a shimmering rainbow surface, its colors mirrored above her with a far-off starfield just visible at the horizon between the two planes.

Her hands are clutching the end of a normal length of ribbon, its coils lying unassumingly on the ground, the other end fastened to a bolt of pink energy embedded in the prismatic softness. Homura recognizes it as one of Madoka's arrows: shot from directly above with such force that less than half a meter of its length is visible, thrusting straight up out of the ground.

Still breathing hard, she touches it. It's solid against her palm, humming slightly with world-reshaping power.

A surge of fresh arousal surges through her, greedy enough that she has to grind the heel of her hand against the cusp of her pubic bone to relieve some of the ache. "You've been spying on my _fantasies_," she groans, scrabbling at the waistband of her clinging underpants.

_Can you blame me?_

The meaning blossoms in Homura's mind, so unlike human voices or even Kyuubei-enabled telepathy, as if the very atoms of her brain have rearranged themselves to place those words there. She steps out of the scrap of fabric and tosses it aside, not caring where it lands.

Next goes the tank top, baring the full lithe curves of her young adult body. Years of realtime growth have filled it out, while demon-hunting has kept it svelte: if she's vain about it, well, you need a little vanity to be comfortable stripping for a fundamental physical force of the universe.

No sooner has the thought cross her mind than approval flows through her, making her back arch and her hips roll. She grabs the back end of the arrow with one hand and pushes two fingers of the other into herself, already open and wet, so wet. It's a matter of seconds to position her entrance over the shaft, to spread her knees wider and slide down onto it.

The glow intensifies. She can see the light through her outer folds where they wrap slickly around it, imagines she can almost see the full length as it pushes slowly within her. There's no doubt she can _feel_ every inch of it, solid and thick and filling her up as deep as she can take, then massaging her inner walls as she pulls back. Her skin is electrified, adrenaline pounding through her veins.

Before she can gather the nerve to sink back down, gloved hands grip the curve of her waist and _shove_.

Homura breathes curses in a language no human speaks. Her hips are lifted until the arrow is almost out of her, then hauled back down until she's stuffed with it. Abruptly the vibration intensifies as well, splaying her legs akimbo, so that her invisible partner is bearing her whole weight as easily as if she were a child's toy. From the core outward her whole body is flooded with heat, leaving her panting broken fragments of sound.

She presses her third finger, the one with the purple diamond etched on the nail, roughly against her clit, and comes so hard she would have torn something if not for Madoka holding her up.

Several drinks and a few innocuous personal revelations into their next outing, one of the more enthusiastic researchers on Homura's team slaps her on the back and announces, "Akemi-san, we have got to get you _laid!_"

Everyone in the bar throws uncertain looks in their direction as Homura laughs until her sides hurt.


End file.
